Macworld.Ars: ModBook not destined to become light as Air

The Axiotron ModBook has been a long time coming. The modified MacBook has …

The Axiotron ModBook has been called a lot of things since we first saw it at Macworld 2007, from an amazing product that Apple should have made to vaporware. Why the latter? Because an entire year later, customers who preordered the third-party Mac tablet are still waiting for their orders to arrive. The device's ship date has been pushed back multiple times without much explanation, but on December 31, the company announced that it would finally ship the darn thing, and with new specs.

Now that the MacBook Air is out, some wonder whether the ModBook is once again behind on its technology. We took the opportunity to catch up with Axiotron CEO Andreas Haas at Macworld 2008 to see what the holdup was really about, and whether the company plans to turn the MacBook Air into a ModBook Air.

Haas told us that, contrary to some reports of parts shortages, the company's first setback came when it signed an agreement with Apple in April of last year. Why in the world would a third-party hardware modding company sign an agreement with Apple, you ask? "Apple turned us into an Apple Proprietary Solutions provider, which gave us a whole new set of rules to work with," Haas said. "Before, we were just doing whatever we wanted. Then after the agreement, we had a lot more possibilities since we were then going to work within the Apple dealership (not Apple itself), but had so many more guidelines to follow."

The second setback came when Apple released the Santa Rosa-based MacBook update in the fall. Since Axiotron wants to make sure it ships current hardware, the update meant modifying the ModBook once again.

Now, the machine is finally shipping, and users couldn't be happier. Well, they could—they'd love to get their orders a little sooner. Axiotron currently has a four-week lead time for new orders made at Macworld, which Haas says is due to all of the delays last year. "We want to make sure we fill the entire backlog of orders from 2007 through our US and Canadian distributors before fulfilling new orders," Haas told us. "Those people have been waiting long enough."

But now that the MacBook Air is out and rumors about the possibility of an Apple iTablet refuse to die, how much longer does Axiotron think it can milk the ModBook? "The iTablet is not gonna come," Haas said firmly. "We are shipping in the hundreds of thousands, and Apple ships in the millions" he added, noting that Apple typically kills products when they ship in such "low" volume as the ModBook currently does.

Haas would know—he spent many years killing products at Apple for that exact reason. In fact, Haas says that he was the last Apple product manager to turn off the lights at the Newton division back in the day (a decision that he says he wished was never made, but happened nonetheless). "Apple just isn't interested in this type of thing, and that's why we're fulfilling that need. We're thrilled about it, and we are not going anywhere."

As for a MacBook Air-based ModBook, Axiotron doesn't believe there's a demand for it yet. "We plan to take a couple apart to see what we can do with it, sure," Haas said. "But when we ask our customers what they want, they tell us that they want a bigger screen and a faster graphics card. A MacBook Air isn't going to give us either of those things over a traditional MacBook. I had an entire crowd of people here at the booth yesterday and asked around, and only one guy said he would prefer a lighter ModBook to a more powerful one."